Strategic Orientation of Experimental Centre
Strengthened by Participation in European Commission 6th Framework
Some €17.5 billion have been
earmarked for co-financing successful candidates involved in European Research
and Technological Development. Alas, only a finite portion of this is dedicated
to ATM related activities (
In
the realm of ATM related research, both EUROCONTROL and the European Commission
have been seeking to minimise duplication and achieve
a high degree of complementarity and reciprocity in
the execution of their respective research programmes.
To
facilitate this EUROCONTROL nominated a project officer for each ATM related EC
project. Their role is to act as the technical and administrative focal point
for the project throughout the contract negotiation and subsequent phases of
the contract where they will liaise with the respective proposal leader. They
will ensure the overall efficiency of the project throughout its lifecycle,
acting on behalf of both the Agency and the European Commission, ensuring that
their joint interests are protected.
FP6 has introduced new
instruments for its implementation aimed at ensuring coherent project funding
over a longer time frame greatly facilitating the assembly of the “critical
mass” of expertise, resources and activities needed to achieve its ambitious
objectives. In a number of ATM related areas, the EEC is part of this critical
mass.
FP6 is structured around
three main headings:
The EEC has focussed its participation inside the first segment, where
the Aeronautics and Space Thematic priority is located, but has not restricted
its activities to this area alone. Between 17th December and 20th
March, we actively participated in the preparation of some 7 proposals aimed
specifically at reinforcing the strategic orientations adopted by the EEC.
The following pages give a very general view of where we are, with whom
and what we contribute…….
OPTIMAL (IP8, Advanced Approach and Landing)
BluePath (IP11, Airport
Efficiency)
EMMA (IP10, A-SMGCS), Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and
Control Systems
RESET
(STREP, Reduced Separation Minima)
IMAGINE,
Improved Methods for the Assessment of the Generic Impact of Noise in the
Environment
More information on FP6 may be found
at europa.eu.int/comm/research
and http://www.cordis.lu/fp6
Optimal is the chosen acronym
for a project entitled Optimised Procedures And Techniques For Improvement Of
Approach And Landing. Current landing procedures are mainly based on ILS with a
constant gradient of descent along the glide slope, which to a large degree is
a constraining factor for future growth. As Airport congestion and
environmental constraints become increasingly problematic in the growing air
transport market, alternate, novel solutions must be investigated to relieve
the congestion and improve the environmental impact in and around airports.
OPTIMAL
is an air-ground co-operative project, which is aiming to define and
validate innovative procedures for the approach and landing phases of aircraft
and rotorcraft in a pre-operational environment. The goal is to minimise external
aircraft/rotorcraft noise nuisance and increase the ATM capacity whilst
maintaining and even improving safety. Those achievements will be enabled by new precision approach landing aids (MLS,
SBAS, GBAS), more accurate navigation means (RNP 0.1) and enhanced airborne
systems, such as FLS, for Non-Precision Approaches. The target time frame for the
operational implementation of the OPTIMAL proposed operational concept is 2010
and beyond, it will therefore participate in reaching the targets for airport
capacity developments identified in the ATM 2000+ Strategy and in the ACARE
Strategic Agenda.
The EEC planned involvement
is spread over a 4-year period to provide operational and technical input,
including real time simulation exercises.
The objective of this project
is to define, validate and test new procedures for aircraft and rotorcraft,
which should allow an increase in the movement throughput of the airports as
well as addressing environmental issues. Some real time simulations and flight
trials are envisaged in the project to ensure that practical applications of
the procedures are feasible without asking to controllers and pilot’s
unfeasible manoeuvres.
The proposal is led by Airbus
Industries, France and main Partners within the consortium are:
EUROCONTROL will contribute
to the project in the following fields:
·
Provide input from other projects related to new
advanced procedures
·
Provide expertise for the definition and the
development of the operational concepts
·
Provide environmental and operational benefit studies
·
Provide expertise for the aircraft and rotorcraft
procedures definition
·
Provide expertise for the definition of the functional
requirements for the AMAN supporting the new procedures.
The BluePath proposal
addresses the need to increase the Operational Capacity of the European Air
Transport System with particular emphasis on Airport Efficiency. Fully
integrated air-side
and land-side models and the capability to implement multiple and parallel
instances of tools will be addressed. The models developed in this project are
expected to provide for the development of effective management support tools
for airlines, airports, air traffic management, and policy makers at a National
and European level.
The research work will
integrate a comprehensive analysis of existing processes for Aircraft
Turnaround and make recommendations for re-engineering those processes. Based
on these recommendations, a Specification and Development plan will be drawn up
for a seamlessly Integrated Airport Management System for Airlines, taking
account of both land and air-side operations, relevant third party service
providers and Air Traffic Management.
The EEC planned involvement
is spread over a 3-year period to provide operational and technical input.
The BluePath objective is a
pragmatic approach to the considerably reduction of aircraft turn-around time
and passenger waiting time. The prototype will be validated at various airport
sites throughout
The Project results will be
comprehensively disseminated for the benefit of all actors in the European Air
Transport System and the improvements in efficiency will ultimately be to the
benefit of the travelling public in
Aircraft Management
Technologies Ltd (AMT),
EUROCONTROL will contribute
to the project in the following fields:
· Provide input from
other projects related to airport process reengineering
· Provide expertise
for the definition and the development of airport procedures
· Conduct modelling
using System Dynamics and possibly TAAM related tools
· Develop and review
functional requirements for airport processes
· Provide expertise
for validation.
European airport Movement Management by A-SMGCS (EMMA) is a proposal
responding to IP10 of the 6th Framework Programme, A-SMGCS. The European way to reach these goals is outlined by
the EUROCONTROL EATMP Programme (i.e. Airport Operations) and ATM2000+ Strategy
as well as the ACARE SRA work. They identify airports as the future bottlenecks
of air transport and see mid-term solutions in: ‘...enhanced operational
concepts, supported by new decision-making or decision-support tools to ensure more
efficient use of the airport infrastructure...’. They say ‘A-SMGCS are seen as
key R&D topics’ (ACARE). Holistic approaches like A-SMGCS are seen as the
most promising way to achieve the necessary paradigm shift.
The A-SMGCS project ‘EMMA’
aims to become the most significant R&D contribution to these goals in the
2004 to 2008 timeframe by maturing and validating the A-SMGCS concept as an
integrated air-ground system, seamlessly embedded in the overall ATM system. In
a two-phase approach EMMA will first consolidate the surveillance and conflict
alert functions, and in the second phase focus on advanced onboard guidance
support to pilots and planning support to controllers.
The European position in
the global ATM market will be strengthened through EMMA by setting de facto
standards for A-SMGCS systems and their operational usage and streamlining of
existing products. The EMMA consortium is setting this frame of consolidated
accepted standards for operational and technical concept, procedures, safety and
interoperability by joining forces of highest A-SMGCS excellence from users,
industry and R&D organisations. Extensive operational live trials proving
the usefulness and completeness of the operational and technical requirements
frame will form the basis for efficient A-SMGCS production and implementation
throughout
The planned EEC involvement
spread over a 2-year period to provide support to the definition of advanced
operational concept and to the validation definition. Phase 2 of the project is
to be defined later and the EEC plans to play a major role at this time.
The EMMA project shall bring
A-SMGCS one-step towards the final goal, the harmonised European implementation
of A-SMGCS. With EMMA harmonisation will be defined as common A-SMGCS
interoperable Air-Ground co-operation concept and benefit expectation in
To achieve this high level
goal sub-goals have been defined. Based on an advanced operational concept a
level 1 & 2 A-SMGCS shall be implemented at three European airports at the
first project phase. These systems shall be used operationally over a
relatively long time period. The implemented systems shall be verified and
validated against the predefined operational and technical requirements.
On-site long-term trials shall ensure the assessment of benefit estimations.
The issues of this test phase feed back to the concept of operations with the
aim to fix standards for future implementation in terms of:
These standards shall feed into the
relevant international organisations involved in the specification of A-SMGCS
(ICAO, EUROCAE, EUROCONTROL) and shall be mandatory for future implementations.
Furthermore the results will used to make public guidelines for the
certification of an A-SMGCS. Additionally, the experiences gathered at the test
sites shall be used to produce technical and operational transition guidelines.
In a second project phases
the then available level 1 and 2 systems will be extended to a full level
A-SMGCS and connections to other airport system elements such as AMAN/DMAN and
Airport CDM Information Systems will be achieved. This shall be used
pre-operational by shadow mode or full operational under certain conditions, to
assure safety.
The proposal is led by DLR,
EUROCONTROL will contribute
to the project in the following fields:
·
Establishment of the project baseline by transfer of
knowledge from ongoing Eurocontrol
activities
·
Participation the development of advanced operational
concepts to assure interoperability
·
Input the definition of the validation process to
assure that aspects related to safety, capacity and the acceptance are properly
addressed.
·
Ensure the convergence with ATM2000+ objectives
C-ATM,
Co-operative ATM, is a very ambitious programme with an overall budget of some
100M, aimed at pre-implementation of a Technical and Operational baseline
system for 2010. It intends to provide a fully integrated and inter-operable
Air/Ground environment encompassing Flow Management, Traffic Management and
Separation Management, building upon existing EATMP and EC work. Phase 1 of
this 3 phase project is specifically oriented toward the integration of
disparate elements into an overall concept of operations and establishing the
technological elements required to support its implementation.
The
EUROCONTROL participation will be focused on the establishment of the overall
concept of operations. Phase 1 will last approximately 14 months for a budget
of 14M.
The
objective of the C-ATM project is to take the most mature and promising ATM
concepts developed in the 5th Framework Programme and EATMP activities and
assemble these into a overall concept of operation and technical framework
which will support live validation trials, as a major step to facilitate
operational implementation around 2010.
The
overall concept will be largely inspired by elements of COOPATS and of FAM
together with the initial principles and ideas developed within the EATMP CDM
activities and FDM. It will be built upon and driven by the following guiding
principles:
·
4D trajectory
exchange and negotiation using the AFAS application set as defined within the
ODIAC framework, specifically integrating Aircraft Derived Data (ADD) into the
ground segment.
·
The ASAS Package
1 application set conforms to EUROCONTROL CARE/ASAS Package 1. The ASAS
applications are defined based on the FAA/EUROCONTROL “Principles of Operations
for use of Airborne Separation Assistance Systems” (PO ASAS) study.
·
Enhanced
separation tools (e.g. CORA).
·
Sharing of
flight data and initial Collaborate (Co-operative) Decision Making
applications.
·
Traffic flow
management
Safety
and Certification issues will be of paramount importance to this project and it
is expected that EUROCONTROL provide guidelines to support the development.
The
overall goals of the project at this time may be resumed as follows:
·
Test aircraft
equipped with certifiable avionics
·
Certifiable architecture and design
·
Full certification effort not included in C-ATM
·
Experimental
Ground Platforms (2 or 3) based on Industrial ATS platforms, configured to
support shadow-mode live trials
·
At least one in Core European Airspace
·
Configured to support city-pair interoperability
·
Live trials in
selected areas in
·
City pair scenarios with 4-D end-to-end time-based
management
·
ASAS applications and 4-D / ASAS transition
·
Multi-sector planning
·
Sharing of data and initial Collaborative Decision Making
Applications
·
Contribution to
European ADS-B Master Plan and Requirements Focus Group
Foundation
for Large Scale Trials, towards Operational Deployment During the first phase,
These
objectives will be refined into a coherent and achievable operating
environment.
Proposal is led by the Air Traffic Alliance,
with participation from
EUROCONTROL will contribute
to the project in the following fields:
·
Establishment of the overall Operational concept
baseline by transfer of knowledge from leading Eurocontrol activities
·
Participation the development of a road map for
implementation of the concepts with ANSP’s, Airlines and the supply industry
·
Input into the definition of the validation process to
assure that aspects related to safety, efficiency and the acceptance are
properly addressed.
·
Ensure the convergence with ATM2000+ objectives
The aeronautics research work programme states
that for the New Generation ATM there will be a need to, “Safely reduce
separation minima to increase system capacity”. With an expected threefold
increase in air traffic it is imperative that the air traffic system and all
its components are aligned to safely deal with the increased traffic.
A Specific Targeted Research Project has been
identified in the EC’s 6th Framework Programme, identified as
Reduced Separation Minima, to address the issues relating to potential
decreases in separation minima.
The planned level of EUROCONTROL effort is still
under negotiation, however current expectations are estimated at ~20m/m spread
over a two year period and focusing mainly in the efficiency gains and economic
benefits areas of the study, where EEC are work package leaders.
The
RESET Project overall objectives are:
1.
To analyse the currently applicable ICAO regulations and
standards stating separation minima requirements to the different phases of
flight;
2.
Determine the
parameters that influence the establishment of the separation standard minima
and evaluate their influence;
3.
Propose changes
to current regulations when a lack of foundation is detected, listing the
faulty regulations and standards,
4.
Develop safety,
efficiency and economic cases to support recommended changes to separation
standards.
Specifically this means,
“Reappraisal and revision of current ATC separation minima and the development,
analysis and modelling of new air to air and surface (including manoeuvring
areas, runways and A-SMGCS) separation minima based on advanced communication,
navigation and surveillance systems, in co-ordination with C-ATM, AAA and
A-SMGCS. Development of safety, efficiency and economic cases to support
proposed changes to new and revised International (ICAO) standards.”
Large amounts of resources have been
dedicated to develop the new ATM system and to avionics, but in particular
cases, separation standards are potentially a constraining factor to the
performance of new systems and concepts.
Airborne operational concepts to reduce distances between flights - such
as ASAS applications and advanced technologies like ADS-B -are intended to increase the capacity of the
airspace. Assuming that one of the major expected benefits, especially in the
capacity and efficiency domains, will be mainly produced by an overall
reduction in all separation minima, a key question arises at this point: Will
the ICAO current regulations support the new concepts? Or, will they impose a
constraint limiting the full performance of the new system and associated
technologies thus negating any potential benefit?
The
project will:
1.
Analyse the ICAO
regulations and separation minima requirements applicable to the different
phases of the flight and operation, including the aircraft movement on the
airport surface, creating a checklist of phases of flight and the applicable
regulations.
2.
Investigate and
determine the foundations of each ICAO separation regulation: i.e. operational,
trials, safety studies, simulations, hypothesis, etc. The investigations will
conclude with the significance of each basis and its sensitivity to
modification.
3.
It will revise
the current methods and practices for defining and determining separation
minima, in particular the methodology/ies proposed by ICAO for assessing the
level of safety of a new system, technology or procedure. [1]
4.
In parallel, the
main factors, technical and human, affecting the separation minima, and in
particular the new technologies and concepts will be assessed to determine
whether they are expected to reduce the separation minima figures imposed by
the regulation in each phase of flight.
5.
Both,
technologies and ICAO separation standards will be cross-checked, and those
regulations based on not solid enough basis or clearly surpassed by the
abilities of new system technologies, will be proposed for revision.
6.
Taking into
account the resources of the project, several ICAO regulations amongst those
determined in the previous step will be selected and analysed
in depth. Those regulations having the most severe impact on the system
capacity would be selected. Safety cases will be performed to assess the level
of safety of the new system. Complementary efficiency and economic cases will
be performed to support the proposed changes to the regulations.
7.
During the
development of the safety, efficiency and economic cases some aspects tightly
related to the implementation may require further in depth assessments, as well
as specific trials and demonstration once implemented. These tasks will be
identified within this project while its execution could be co-ordinated in the
framework of C-ATM, AAA and A-SMGCS projects.
The results of this activity are expected to provide input into all other FP 6 ATM projects. They will equally propose changes to ICAO current regulations when a lack of foundations is detected, listing the ‘faulty’ regulations and standards and support changes to the selected proposed separation standards by developing safety, efficiency and economic cases.
The proposal is led by AENA with participation
from AIRBUS,
The
research proposed by the Commission in the context of the Sixth Framework
Programme (FP6), combines human factors, safety and airport efficiency with
harmonised validation methodologies, supported by business cases and safety
assessments. More specifically, the Commission is proposing a cluster of seven
research areas, ranging from airport efficiency to cooperative air traffic
management (ATM). The projects that will implement these research areas in FP6
will be based on previous knowledge and, in turn produce new knowledge. CAATS
aims at consolidating knowledge into best practice manuals and ensuring their
dissemination and usage within the FP 6 projects.
EUROCONTROL effort is planned to be 18m/m over the
project duration of 24 months. The total Project Cost is 2M€ which is funded at
100%.
The
objective of the proposed Cooperative Approach to Air Traffic Services (CAATS)
coordination action is to manage, consolidate and disseminate the knowledge
produced in the European Commission's FP6 ATM-related projects. The focus will
be in three areas: the knowledge produced in the areas of safety, human factors
and validation. The aim is to provide a coordinated approach by all FP6
projects to achieve the Commission's paradigm shift.
The
aim will be achieved in three work packages, whose activities will be project
management and coordination, including dissemination of the results of CAATS,
knowledge management and knowledge consolidation. The consortium consists of 16
organizations from all parts of
The
most significant expected output of CAATS is the achievement of a coordinated,
cooperative approach to ATM research within FP6. In addition best practice
manuals will be produced in the areas of safety, human factors and validation
for use not only by European Commission projects but other interested
stakeholders.
The proposal is led by
ISDEFE,
EUROCONTROL will contribute
to the project in the following fields:
·
Establishment of the project baseline by transfer of
knowledge from ongoing Eurocontrol
activities in the Validation, Safety and Human Factors areas
·
Input into the definition and elaboration of the best
practices manuals in each of the targeted areas and ensuring concordance with
EATMP objectives.
Imagine, Improved Methods for the Assessment of the Generic Impact of Noise in the
Environment,
is a proposal in response to the Policy Support and Anticipating Scientific and
Technological Needs chapter of the first Call for the 6th Framework Programme
of the European Commission, specifically task 3 “Improving current assessment
of environmental noise and noise impacts from railways, roads and aircraft” in
the section “Assessment methods for Environmental Impact”.
The project is planned to start in
early 2004 and will last three years. The planned level of EUROCONTROL effort
is still estimated to be of the order of 20mm. It will be almost entirely
devoted to a single work package – Aircraft Noise Sources.
The Imagine proposal is to extend
the results of the 5FP Harmonoise project, a harmonised and improved method for
the prediction of road and railway noise, which will be available from
September 2004.
Harmonoise proposes a methodology
based on point-source noise modelling combined with noise propagation
modelling. Due to budgetary limitations, this project explicitly excluded
aircraft noise modelling in its scope and only briefly covered other noise
sources – industry, shipping, movable noise such as power plants etc. The aim
of Imagine is, therefore, to complete this work by adding these missing
sections and tidying up the two main Harmonoise sections – road and rail.
The inclusion of aircraft noise
involves major changes to the Harmonoise methodology since, whilst the other
noise sources are all situated close to the ground, aircraft are at much higher
altitudes; noise propagation from high elevation angles is different from that
from low elevation angles and there are many meteorological factors to be taken
into account.
The EEC is designated work package
leader of the Aircraft Noise Sources work package, WP4. This work package –
which accounts for 23% of the total proposed imagine budget - involves:
·
the development of modifications to the Harmonoise models
·
the definition of methods for calculating and measuring aircraft source
noise data
·
production of documents that will enable the results of this work to be
included into European law
EUROCONTROL does not contribute to
any other work packages in Imagine other than “dissemination”.
This project
is very well aligned with the objectives and expectations of the EEC’s Society,
Environment and Economics business area and provides an excellent introduction
to organisations working in both the road and rail transport areas. Such links
are essential for future work on inter-modal transport solutions.
The
Imagine proposal is being co-ordinated by
[1] ICAO Manual on Airspace Planning Methodology for the Determination of Separation Minima- Doc 9689-AN/953. First Edition 1998.